Section 5

After dinner our four tourists sat late and talked in a
corner of the smoking-room. The two ladies had vanished
hastily at the first dinner gong and reappeared at the
second, mysteriously and pleasantly changed from tweedy
pedestrians to indoor company. They were quietly but
definitely dressed, pretty alterations had happened to their
coiffure, a silver band and deep red stones lit the dusk of
Miss Grammont's hair and a necklace of the same colourings
kept the peace between her jolly sun-burnt cheek and her soft
untanned neck. It was evident her recent uniform had included
a collar of great severity. Miss Seyffert had revealed a
plump forearm and proclaimed it with a clash of bangles. Dr.
Martineau thought her evening throat much too confidential.

The conversation drifted from topic to topic. It had none of
the steady continuity of Sir Richmond's duologue with Miss
Grammont. Miss Seyffert's methods were too discursive and
exclamatory. She broke every thread that appeared. The Old
George at Salisbury is really old; it shows it, and Miss
Seyffert laced the entire evening with her recognition of the
fact. "Just look at that old beam!" she would cry suddenly. "
To think it was exactly where it is before there was a Cabot
in America!"

Miss Grammont let her companion pull the talk about as she
chose. After the animation of the afternoon a sort of lazy
contentment had taken possession of the younger lady. She sat
deep in a basket chair and spoke now and then. Miss Seyffert
gave her impressions of France and Italy. She talked of the
cabmen of Naples and the beggars of Amalfi.

Apropos of beggars, Miss Grammont from the depths of her
chair threw out the statement that Italy was frightfully
overpopulated. "In some parts of Italy it is like mites on a
cheese. Nobody seems to be living. Everyone is too busy
keeping alive."

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"And everybody begging. Even the people at work by the
roadside. Who ought to be getting wages--sufficient. . . ."

"Begging--from foreigners--is just a sport in Italy," said
Sir Richmond. "It doesn't imply want. But I agree that a
large part of Italy is frightfully overpopulated. The whole
world is. Don't you think so, Martineau?"

"Well--yes--for its present social organization. "

"For any social organization," said Sir Richmond.

"I've no doubt of it," said Miss Seyffert, and added
amazingly: "I'm out for Birth Control all the time."

A brief but active pause ensued. Dr. Martineau in a state of
sudden distress attempted to drink out of a cold and empty
coffee cup.

"The world swarms with cramped and undeveloped lives," said
Sir Richmond. "Which amount to nothing. Which do not even
represent happiness. And which help to use up the resources,
the fuel and surplus energy of the world."

"I suppose they have a sort of liking for their lives," Miss
Grammont reflected.

"Does that matter? They do nothing to carry life on. They are
just vain repetitions--imperfect dreary, blurred repetitions
of one common life. All that they feel has been felt, all
that they do has been done better before. Because they are
crowded and hurried and underfed and undereducated. And as
for liking their lives, they need never have had the chance."